Adopt a Spot project goes global!
On Sunday 24 and Saturday 30 September, Dave Liddle, a founder and leader of the Gamba Grass Adopt a Spot project at Casuarina Coastal Reserve presented at the 10th World Conference of the Society for Ecological Restoration.
With a diverse audience including international and local scientists, UN officials, and environmentalists, Dave spoke about the group’s remarkable journey of community-led restoration efforts in the reserve. He showcased the successes of the innovative pilot project, aimed at mapping and removing invasive gamba grass, a significant threat to the coastal reserve's ecosystems.
Gamba grass, Andropogon gayanus is a highly invasive weed that creates high fuel loads and is threatening many areas throughout the Northern Territory (NT). Dave explained how the Adopt a Spot project was initiated in response to community concern about gamba grass in the reserve after a bad fire season on 2020. He led a group of community volunteers from the local Landcare Group in a mapping activity over the reserve early in the 2020/2021 wet season using the NT Government’s Weedmate app to record and submit data. This revealed three large infestations and multiple small outlying infestations.
The mapping enabled areas of the reserve to be targeted effectively and collaboratively. The Gamba Army, together with Parks and Wildlife rangers, tackled the large infestations with their vehicle mounted spray units, long hoses and backpacks, while Dave and the Adopt a Spot volunteers tackled the 13 spots with outlying infestations. They did this by mapping out each spot and allocating them to individual volunteers who “adopted” each site and visited at their convenience, using hand tools to remove the gamba grass over the 2 year period. The volunteers used the Weedmate app to record their control work and monitored changes in the abundance of gamba grass at their sites. These records now form a data set that includes both presence and absence data for gamba grass over the entire Casuarina Coastal Reserve which is a very valuable tool for ongoing management.
Dave reinforced that the high levels of trust and collaboration between government agencies and community volunteers was an outstanding feature of this project and a significant factor in enabling successful community-led restoration efforts. Thanks again Dave and all the Adopt a Spot crew. It is fantastic that the group’s successes could be shared over such a wide audience and potentially be “adopted” by other people around the world!
